I'm now at Christmas '43 in my first game as Japan in a PBEM vs Indy58 (Jerry). We are playing scenario 2. What steps, especially on the air side, should I take before the Allied steamroller really gets going?? An example would be how many air groups (or total planes) should I train in LowN?? My opponent is far away from triggering kamikazes, but is there things I should do now?? How much Armament and Vehicles should I stockpile?? Etc??

I need the cliff notes from "Defending Japan in '44 and Beyond for Dummies."

ARM/VEH In Tracker, you can look at a plot that will show your ARM and VEH requirement .vs. production for all units schedule to arrive. Be sure that your production line is above the requirements or those units will not arrive full.

Planes If you intend to use kami's, and it is a good strategy for me at least, you will want to have several thousand planes in your pools. Anything that can carry a 250kg bomb and up is a good candidate (Ann, Mary, Sally, Helen, Kate, Val, Oscar, etc.). Numbers matter as you simply won't be able to take on the CAP over the ARMADA. You look to send +1000 planes on a one way ride. So, you get about 6CV's per 1000 planes. How many CV's are you looking to take out? Me? I plan on at least 4 major attacks, or 4000 planes minimum. I figure that with 24 CV's out of commission the allied DeathStar Armada can't support any more amphibs ... that's the plan. 4000 planes means I have to start building in '41.

Pilots You need enough to match your planes. You don't need much training though ... LowNav in the 50's is my target for kami's. Sure, 70 is better, but I generally cannot get them that high B4 they are used.

Stockpile 150-200k armament and 30-50k vehicle points. You get alot of reinforcements in 44-45 which eat alot of points. But the situation is also dependant on how many formations you lose or get trashed and how fast you want to have them back.

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Joined: 1/26/2005 From: Planning the end of the world, well out to 2023!Status: offline

Build up your forts and garrisons.

As you will be aware the AFB can knock up airfields quickly, islands which might seem inconsequential to a JFB might be a L2 airfield in a few weeks ans L4 in a month or 2. Dont give the AFB an easy capture.

Dont expect to be able to reinforce with LCU after an invasion. While you might be able to slip in troops or supply, more likely is AFB will bring an inpenetrable screen.

Get forces in place early, allow plenty of time to get there, unload and build up forts and lower fatigue.

Keep something in hand as adiversion, you should know what will put off your opponent, a raid into his LOS etc.

Play with his mind. While he may have a good idea of your forces, he wont know 100%, keep him guessing.

I havent played Japan in the new official release. Is the six month replacement stockpile maximum rule still in effect?

For devices? Yes, something like that. For A/C, its MAX(99, 10xAirGroupMaxSize) using that A/C. So building up stockpiles of AC, you just have to manage which air frames you are doing training with to be sure your pool doesn't evaporate.

You will lose whole airunits in just one day of fight, so you HAVE to be prepared to quickly move them to the rear, and replace with fresh units. Also try to keep some anti-ship units in reserve (both quick TFs, and planes). You never know, when you will be lucky, and enemy will decide to retire his CVs, so you better catch all those retreating ships.

And keep some short-range submarines in invasion area. They are just targets from mid-1943, but they are great in catching retiring damaged ships, with low escort.